Simply Media announces the release of BBC’s ‘1990: Series 1’

Wilfred Greatorex’s disturbing vision of a future Britain, devoid of individual rights, is as relevant today as when it first aired, and will thrill sci-fi and dystopian fiction fans alike.

Simply Media have announced the DVD release of the critically acclaimed dystopian drama 1990: Series 1, on 20th March 2017. Originally broadcast on BBC Two in 1977, this will be the very first time this highly sought-after cult sensation will be available on any home video format.

Created by Wilfred Greatorex (Secret Army / ‘Allo ‘Allo), described by The Guardian as “one of the most prolific and assured television script-writers and editors from the 1960s into the 1980s”, 1990 tells a chilling tale of a bleak and nightmarish future Britain where individual rights have been replaced by rights only for the common good. Government bureaucracy is out of control. The lives of ordinary citizens are in the hands of the Home Office’s corrupt and overbearing Public Control Department (PCD), which has its watchful eye on everyone in order to monitor and expose all possible and imaginary threats to the country.

Greatorex himself even described his creation as “Nineteen Eighty-Four plus six” because of the parallel themes with Orwell’s prophetic novel. The PCD uses sophisticated surveillance systems in order to expose anyone threatening the status quo. Special State-sanctioned brainwashing units, cunningly disguised as caring rest-homes, are ruthlessly used to suppress independent thought and “cure” dissidents.

A strict rationing of food, alcohol and travel is imposed, and ID cards are required in order to work, which can be withdrawn by the state at anytime. Free speech is forbidden, censorship is rife, and with no rule of law to protect the vulnerable, all citizens are left at the mercy of the state’s tyrannical control. Or so it seems….

1990 stars Golden Globe winner Edward Woodward (The Wicker Man) in the lead role as the calm, witty and charming rebel Jim Kyle. He’s a journalist working for one of the last remaining independent newspapers, and a secret dissident who is fighting the corrupt establishment by covertly helping others escape. He risks prison or even death if identified.

1990 also takes a rare and fascinating original spin on the dystopian fiction genre, unusually depicting a totalitarian regime where the government follows a socialist agenda, instead of the more usual fascist regime. In a society today where the proposed “Snoopers Charter” has been passed by the British Government, justified as a means of combating terrorism, Greatorex’s fictional vision of the future may not be so different from our real present.

1 Comment

An amazing series, the first in particular a powerful example of what could happen when voter apathy and right-wing leaning politics come together to create a society where the less-fortunate are trodden on even more, whilst those in power live lives of privilege, isolationism and fear of the not-alike are all-pervasive, and the press are either governmental lackey mouthpieces or liars in opposition.